CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Saturday that a police manhunt was underway for Leopoldo Lopez, the hard-line opposition leader behind anti-government demonstrations that ended with three deaths.

The socialist president’s announcement came amid dueling pro-government and student-led opposition demonstrations held in different parts of the capital, Caracas.

Lopez “ordered all these violent kids, which he trained, to destroy the prosecutor’s office and half of Caracas and then goes into hiding,” Maduro told thousands of supporters at a rally to denounce what he called a U.S.-backed, “fascist” plot to oust him from power. “Turn yourself in coward.”

U.S. officials have denied plotting to oust Maduro, and on Saturday Secretary of Login to read more